The Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost - October 25, 2009

"Dove, Cinnamon and Horn of Eye-Shadow"

The Rev. David Frazelle

Note to the reader: I owe most of the exegetical, psychological, social and theological insights (in other words, most of the sermon) to Chapter Ten of Ellen Davis’s Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament (Cowley, 2001). If you find this sermon engaging, I encourage you to read at least this chapter for more on Job, and the whole book if you are so inclined.

“Job had seven sons and three daughters. And he called the name of the first Jemimah; and the name of the second Keziah; and the name of the third Keren-happuch. And in the land there were no women so fair as Job’s daughters; and their father gave them inheritance among their brothers.” Job 42:13-15

These final lines of the book of Job that we heard this morning are some of the most shocking and revealing in the Old Testament. Job chooses to have ten more children. He names his daughters Jemimah, which means Dove, Keziah, which means Cinnamon, and Keren-Happuch, which means Horn of eye-shadow. And Job chooses to give these three daughters, Dove, Cinnamon and Eye-shadow, an inheritance as if they were sons. That’s how the book of Job ends. Job has lots more children, three of them daughters. He gives them unusually sensuous names, and he gives them each an inheritance. Then Job lives another 140 years and dies. End of story.

Even out of context, this ending sounds strange to the modern ear. Ten children is a lot to have for anyone, especially for a 100+ year-old man. Names like Dove and Cinnamon are odd, but to name your daughter after a cosmetic is way over the top. It would be like one of us having a daughter and naming her Tube O. Lipstick, or Madame Rochas. And as for the inheritance, most of us are aware that the rules of inheritance in Job’s day were not as equitable as they are in 21st-century America. It was highly unusual for a father to leave an inheritance for daughters unless he had no sons, and Job had seven more sons. The end of Job’s story is weird.

But the ending becomes truly shocking when we contrast this final portrait of Job as father in Chapter 42 with the initial portrait of father Job in Chapter 1. One of the first things we learn about Job in Chapter One is that every day he offers a sacrifice to God just in case one of his children might have sinned in the prior 24 hours. Job is what we might call today an anxious parent, the kind of parent who calls the high school principal, the Chancellor of the University’s office, and the Episcopal Campus Chaplain on a regular basis just in case his children might have misbehaved. He is fastidious, blameless, and God-fearing in the extreme. Is this the kind of father who would name his daughters after a spice, a container of make-up and a small, fluffy animal, then give them control over a lot of money that no one else thinks they need? I think not. Something has happened to Job between chapters 1 and 42. Something has gotten to Job to provoke this shocking transformation in his parenting and in his spirituality.

According to the biblical text, it turns out that quite a lot has happened to Job between the first and last chapters of his book to radically reorient him and his behavior. First, Job suffers unimaginable pain and loss. Foreign armies destroy his flocks, herds and servants. A windstorm kills all ten of his children. And he falls ill with loathsome sores from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. This suffering is one cause of Job’s transformation.

The second thing that happens is that, after sitting in grief and utter silence for a week with his three best friends, Job begins to rail against God. And Job continues to rail against God for 34 chapters, taking God to task for the injustice of his suffering. He maintains his own innocence and demands over and over again that God give an account for himself and take responsibility for the injustice of innocent human suffering. One could think of this section of the story as “the Bart Ehrman phase.” This persistent, angry railing against God is another ingredient in Job’s transformation.

The final and most important thing that happens to Job is that God speaks back. God responds for four chapters to Job’s accusations and demands, beginning with the passage we heard last week, “Were you there when I laid the foundations of the earth.” This long response provides the final catalyst to Job’s metamorphosis from an anxious, fearful parent to a man who loves in an extraordinarily unorthodox way.

In his lengthy response, God never answers Job’s questions directly about God’s justice and the injustice of human suffering. Instead, God radically re-orients Job by pointing to the wildest, most unpredictable and uncontrolled elements of the world he created and loves. God speaks from a whirlwind, a frighteningly unpredictable force of nature. He points Job to singing stars and roaring lions, to the birthing of mountain goats in secret caves and to the majestic leaping and snorting of wild horses. Not once does God mention a domesticated plant or animal. Not once does God mention anything useful. God speaks only of creatures whom he created for no good reason at all, as if to say to Job, “I love these creatures, not for any obsessive-compulsive observance of a code of conduct; I love them for their sheer beauty, wildness and flair.” To press his point, God takes pains to point out to Job the horrible parenting skills of the ostrich, who routinely forgets where she buries her eggs and squashes them accidentally before they even hatch. Yet God loves the ostrich with the pride of a parent for her proud plumage, and for the way she makes God laugh when she tries to run and fly.

And God saves his best examples for the end of his speech – the Behemoth and the Leviathan. A Behemoth seems to resemble a giant, pre-historic hippopotamus, and the Leviathan is a fantastical sea-monster. God extols the uncontrollable, mighty strength of these beasts and their majestic frames. God revels in the impenetrable scales of Leviathan, who sneezes sparks and breathes fire, who eats iron like straw and makes the ocean boil with its fury.

This, says God, is how I love the world! I love the world so much that I create things in it just for kicks! I delight in the beauty of this world I created for no good reason at all! I love these creatures for their pure pizzazz, for their panache, for their unpredictability. I love the world so much that I allow it perfect freedom to be. I love the world so much that I have even given up control over what my beloved creatures do; I have even given up control over what happens to them. This, Job, is the vulnerable, painful, extravagant way I love the world. And this, Job, is how I love you.

“Job had seven [more] sons and three [more] daughters. And he called the name of the first Jemimah; and the name of the second Keziah; and the name of the third Keren-happuch. And in the land there were no women so fair as Job’s daughters; and their father gave them inheritance among their brothers.” Job 42:13-15

How did Job learn to love like this? In Chapter One, Job was an over-cautious parent who walked on eggshells around God and his family. Now he’s a free-wheeling dad who chooses to have ten more children despite the agony of his prior loss. He throws custom and decorum to the winds by giving his daughters snappy names and lavishly bestowing inheritances on them. And he does all this simply because he finds his daughters to be the most beautiful creatures in the world, simply because he delights in the wild beauty of their freedom.

Where did Job learn to love like this? He learned it from God. Through his suffering, through his persistent wrestling with God, and most of all through his encounter with the living God in the whirlwind of prayer, Job learns to love that which he cannot control and those whom he cannot fully protect. Job learns to be a parent from the God who so loved the world that he gave his only Son for its salvation. Job learns to love as he has been loved - with the reckless abandon of God.
May we be so blessed, between the first and last chapters of our lives, to learn what Job learned, and to love as God loves.